I believe Makiwara training has its place, as does heavy bag training.

Makiwara first:Makiwara are less forgiving. If aspects of your striking such as focus, posture, distance, etc are not optimal you will "feel it" immediately when striking a properly constructed makiwara. Listen to this feedback, to your body and find the best way. If you are inexperienced discuss what you find with your teacher. Many esteemed karateka agree that “a makiwara will talk to you”. Problems with Makiwara training come from impatience, i.e. practitioners who rush to "hit it hard", and feel if their hands don't get bloodied and later calloused they aren't achieving anything. If you plan to train for many years, then start gently, experimenting and then slowly build up to more powerful striking with healthy form over a period of months. Concern yourself with good technique first, power second. In my opinion one of the most important benefits of makiwara training is that it can eventually become a mental/spiritual exercise of unleashing the whole of one's power and focus onto an inanimate object. It is entirely consuming and can bring about a new level of self-awareness. We all seek to gauge ourselves, to know ourselves. You may seek a powerful punch, but with proper practice you may uncover a sense of your fighting spirit that only becomes evident with time and commitment.

Heavy Bag:I believe heavy bags are good for experimentation, for endurance training and for "mixing it up". The shape and “give” of the bag allows you to try a vast number of new techniques with low risk of injury, but it does not necessarily encourage good form and the “forgiving” bag can lead to bad habits. While makiwara training emphasizes static technique and repetition, the bag allows variety and spontaneity. A heavy bag that moves about also requires good timing and distance to strike effectively. You may find that if you practice on both heavy bag and makiwara, the makiwara training helps you to "shock" the bag with more focussed, precise strikes, while the bag will allow you to deliver combinations of strikes at a highly varied pace incorporating both straight and circular techniques. This allows a certain freedom in heavy bag practice that can bring about a different flow and expression of energy than the makiwara. I also feel that the heavy bag is particularly good for training to strike with larger parts of the body – the feet, elbows and knees.

A bag speaks to the striker identically to a makiwara, if we are even slightly awake? Flailing blindly, in lust with watching the bag swing away, and mistaking that to be power...bad mechanical technique, the shouting a bag can do seems identical...

If Okinawans, Chinese had synthetic leather, or heavy canvas would makiwara exist? What is so unique about a makiwara that makes it critically fundamental, necessary to martial practice? I offer that the water bladders of modern bags would have been revered...

Why maintain a "technology"/tool which appears to be redundant or even of lesser value?

The Makiwara requires more precision in regard to which part of the hand is used to deliver the strike, for example in the reverse punch making contact only with the points of the first two knuckles. Allow me to clarify that in my mind we are talking about a makiwara with a flat leather pad, where all of the power you can generate is transmitted by perhaps 2cm square of the forefist knuckles. (please try a Google Image search for "shureido makiwara" - you may know Shureido as the respected brand of traditional Okinawan karate equipment). A makiwara fitted with a thick foam pad or other "cushion" would not be as effective.

With the heavy bag, you can deliver the same reverse punch but a portion of the rest of the fist will invariably make contact with the bag, because the bag is both rounded and a softer striking surface -leather/vinyl/canvas stuffed with rags/water/sand. Of course bags vary in their firmness, but a makiwara is leather on top of wood (beech, oak, cedar), so the contact surface is flat, rigid and harder, with the post portion of the makiwara absorbing the striking energy as it moves and snaps back. This instant rebound of the makiwara also tests one’s ability to transfer shock, whereas for some people, especially intermeadiates and beginners, their punches may “push” a bag to some degree.

With respect, have you tried this kind of makiwara before? If not and you can get to one, hit it and then hit the bag.. I believe you will find the difference. Also, if you practice tamashiwara (breaking), makiwara practice better prepares you for advanced tests of power. I do not believe I could break several non-spaced concrete slabs with a punch by bag training alone. While breaking inanimate objects is not a valid test of fighting ability, it is a good test of courage and raw striking power. And in real self-defense it is an advantage to have this degree of development rather than to not have it.

So winding this down, I would not advocate training in any particular way simply because so-and-so said we must.. 20, 50 or 100 years ago. My opinion comes from my own long experience, experimentation and results. If you have also sought these answers dilligently for many years and have come to the conclusion that Makiwara is inappropriate in today’s world, I respect your opinion and am curious “why”?

I hope this is a more complete answer – thank you for your comments. Best wishes in budo.

Hi Shizen. While I agree with the thrust of your post, I have to disagree with you here:

Quote:

Also, if you practice tamashiwara (breaking), makiwara practice better prepares you for advanced tests of power. I do not believe I could break several non-spaced concrete slabs with a punch by bag training alone.

I'm sure you could - I have done so. I didn't use a makiwara for the first time until a bit after the below video was taken. Both methods can get good results, and IMHO, bag work has a bit less chance of injury in it's favor.

I haven't personally used one, but the traditional makiwara setup with the padding over it seems to be similar to the traditional tamishigri setup of bamboo mats over a wood core. Could it be that it was constructed to simulate muscle over bone?

It just seems to me that the Chinese and the Japanese would have been capable of devising a bag if they wanted one. Boxing doesn't focus on hitting long bones, and so the bag makes more sense for that art.

Striking makiwara correctly is effectively punching into a springy surface. But how would that be different from any bag? Hit incorrectly a bag moves away versus bends/absorbs the strike(s).

If penetration does not occur or is insufficent the bag swings like a metronome away from its "attacker" and then presumedly returns for more "incompetance".

Why is spring (makiwara) feedback signifigant/meaningful? The bag speaks just as plainly. In this medium our respective years of experience are unimportant. Rather our ability to explain our ideas/concepts which have any real merit...

Having no experience per se with this particular tool, I look forward to your (patience) explaination. There are many who could find value and explore the makiwara tool if described well enough...

Will a makiwara be of value to the bones of those no longer young? Can (should?) one begin its use past a certain point in ones life?

I miss the old gif's, there was a bowing gif which I would sorely like to use towards you in your explaination...

I have had this discussion many, many times over the years this is the first I recall anyone suggesting the makiwara simulated the human "long bone" structure.

Why does makiwara require some flexability to it given that idea? I know many, who's striking surface have ZERO give or spring-back. They punch the lolly columns of their homes or worse. Everything I have ever encountered that made any sense on the topic demanded spring back/counter thrust for lack of better words. Many punch insanely hard objects that do not move in the least.

I miss the old gif's, there was a bowing gif which I would sorely like to use towards you in your explaination...

I have had this discussion many, many times over the years this is the first I recall anyone suggesting the makiwara simulated the human "long bone" structure.

Why does makiwara require some flexability to it given that idea? I know many, who's striking surface have ZERO give or spring-back. They punch the lolly columns of their homes or worse. Everything I have ever encountered that made any sense on the topic demanded spring back/counter thrust for lack of better words. Many punch insanely hard objects that do not move in the least.

Ever seen the movie "BUDO"... ? (The choo choo train scene )

Jeff

Jeff: I'm seeing it that way because I am an EMT, and I do weapons training. A good warrior should know the anatomy of what he's cutting into, right? The 'cutting' techniques that you see with the tall bamboo setups are designed to mimic the human anatomy in texture, if not appearance. You have to get used to the feel of cutting through muscle and bone.

That's what makes me suspect that something similar is going on with the makiwara, but again I haven't dealt with one in person. Maybe someday I'll get to see one.